God's Response to Man's Sin

Genesis 3:8-19

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

We're in Genesis chapter number three, and we ended the last study in verse number seven. This is the result of the fall where Adam's wife listens to the serpent. The serpent plays dumb in the beginning, and then all of a sudden switches to the expert. Uh the and the Bible tells us that she, through subtlety, fell. She was beguiled. She was tricked, but Adam knew full well what was going on. And the reason why he knew is because he had got the commandment and failed to speak up when she was misinterpreting the commandment. And his failure was what God held as him being responsible. You're the responsible party. Not that both of them didn't have consequences for what happened, but God always held the responsibility to be uh with Adam. So I want to go back to um verse number six because this is the pattern for sin every time, and it's something that follows from here on out. And um this is what it is. We'll read verse number six. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also under her husband with her, and he did eat. So here's the pattern every time for sin, you look and you call it good according to your assessment and desires mixed in with that look, but also the taking. So you look, you call your own good and take. And the rest of the Hebrew Bible plays this out in many different ways, but I want to read a couple of those. So whichever one of y'all have the Genesis account, we're gonna go there first. This is Genesis chapter number sixteen, and see if you can find the pattern here.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Now Sarah, Abram's wife, bare him no children, and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar, and Sarah said unto Abram, Behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee go in unto my maid, it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So do you see that? You see the pattern? And Sarah said unto Abraham, verse two, look, behold now, so you look and you see what is good in your own eyes. I'll tell you what's good. It may be that God wants us to do this. Was that what God wanted? No. God had told Abraham, You trust me, and I'm gonna give you a child. And Sarah says, she schemes this. I know how this is gonna happen. It's gonna happen this way. So she looks, and then the Bible said, verse number three, so Sarah, Abram's wife, took that's number two, and gave. Or they they produced, they're trying to produce the blessing. They're trying to, you know, it's the same pattern. Maybe variations here and there, but it's it's saying the same thing to look, call your own good, and then you be a partaker of that. Every time man is a partaker of what he calls good, he finds himself in failure every time. Yes. That's profound, huh? It is. It's the same way every time. This is the pattern of sin. This is the foundational scripture that sets up the pattern of sin every time. Anytime you look at something and you say, This is what's good for me, if it's outside of God's purposes, it will be your disaster every time. So the second passage, and these are just easy passages to find, is found in 2 Samuel, verse number one of 2 Samuel 11. This is King David.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

And it came to pass after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Amon and besieged Raba. But David tarried still at Jerusalem, and it came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David sent and inquired after the woman, and one said, Is not this is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers and took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her, for she was purified from her uncleanness, and she returned into her house, and the woman conceived and sent and told David, and said, I am with child.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

This is David's great fall to immorality. And you see right here, David goes on his rooftop, he walks in the evening time, and he saw, he looked. He looked and he said, She's very good to look upon, she's beautiful to look upon, and he took her. It's the pattern for sin throughout the rest of the Old Testament. Yes. It's exactly what happens every time. And it's very clear in this passage that David's not supposed to be doing this. He's supposed to be in battle right now. This is a time when kings go forth to battle, and failure happens, follows this pattern every time. So that's what's happening in uh chapter three, verse number six. It's this pattern being set up. Variations of that. It could be explained in many different ways, but that is the way it goes all the time. So we ended here last last time in verse number seven. The eyes of both of them were open. They knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. The first thing they did was put something that separated themselves from each other. I can't trust you. You can't trust me. And really, it was a mutual breach of trust, right? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

He can't trust her anymore, but she can't trust him anymore. He was supposed to be the one that that conveys the command. He never spoke up. That's very powerful, isn't it? It is. Now, first plot conflict of the Bible. How does God respond to this? When man breaks God's commandments, how does God respond to that? If you didn't know the rest of the storyline of the Bible and you knew that God said, in the day that you eat thereof, you're gonna die, what's your expectations now? Death. Meaning to die, yes. And probably at the hands of him.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

He's the one that set the command. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

How's this all gonna work out? The expectation is definitely there. I think we've already been here in one other point of the story. It was, it was in chapter two, where God is saying, I don't have an uh help that's adequate for Adam. I'm gonna solve the problem, and the next thing you read is something totally different.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So we should already be kind of orienting ourselves for what we as humans expect to happen may not be what happens. Right. So the next thing we read is in verse number eight. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. That's God's response. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. What stands out to you there?

SPEAKER_03 8:21

I think I've always just seen I've always pictured God talking because they're because I read the word voice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Brother Nathan Wood pointed this out to me. It's something very powerful. The two creative elements of creation that God used came through his voice, and it takes word and breath for your voice to be heard. You got to form a word and you gotta breathe to form that word for that to be something that brings about creation in chapter number one. God said, in order for you to say something, it takes a word and it takes breath. God, the Father, Jesus, John chapter number one is the word, and the breath of God is the Spirit. So when it came to a response to man's sin, this is not just one part of the Godhead showing up. God comes down, he's already been with man, he's been closely connected to him, right? He's been face to face with him, and now he's gonna come with his voice. It's gonna take all three to respond to the sin of man. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The phrase in the cool of the day means in the wind of the day. So the voice of God was walking on the wind, and the the walk there, the word there is the same word that's used um in just a couple chapters later about Enoch walked with God. It's not to go from point A to point B, but it's to meander, it's to take time like you're strolling. So evidently we learned by this that God and man took strolls together in this garden, in this safe spot for man, this protected place for God and man to meet together. And they just took walkabouts. Enoch found that out, and he was not for God took him. We read that a couple chapters later. We also find men like Abraham knew what it was like to walk with God.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Because it seems to me in this verse, God is not coming to confront man necessarily. Yeah. The way I see it, between eight and nine, both verses, normally Adam and Eve.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Showing up boiling in anger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

And normally Adam and Eve would be there to stroll with God. Because why else would why else would God question ask where art thou? Yes. Because normally in times previously always come to me. You've always been walking with me.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I put you here in the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Where are you at?

SPEAKER_03 11:06

It was that break of fellowship. Yes. Yes. And it was broken on man's side. Broken on man's side. And here's God. You can now I can almost feel the I don't know what word I'm trying to look for here of God missing that fellowship.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Oh man. He's already seeking restoration.

unknown 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

I came here.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

Where are you at? Where are you at? Where I've met you before, where we fellowship before, where are you? And far too often we look at that as God kicking us.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Man, I've never seen that before. That's beautiful. It's it's God being emotional. You know, I've asked this question before. His response is an awesome response, but he responds not out of anger here. The first time anger is mentioned in the Bible's in the book of Exodus concerning God's anger. He confronts man about his anger in chapter number four, but God's anger is never here. We find God acting out of grief.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

And, you know, it you know, there's a lot of uh theological questions that come about a God that's all powerful. We we put his all-powerfulness as being something that causes him somehow to lose the ability to have emotions or to be hurt, sure, or to, but this is the crowning of his creation, and this is what happened. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's so good. Where are you? They heard the voice of the Lord. God showed up just like he had over and over, presumably over and over before. We meet here. This is what we do. And when you didn't show up at your meeting place, I'm gonna ask questions.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

I also see in verse nine, because it it's very specific. The Lord God called into Adam. So something I see in there, um, even though God is calling out to He's missing that fellowship, he's calling out to the person that he also gave the command to hold responsible for the command.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Right. Wow. They heard the Lord God, the voice of the Lord God, walking in the garden, doing the walkabout in the cool of the day. So evidently, when they hear God's voice meandering around the garden, they're doing whatever they can to blend into their surroundings. Yeah, yeah. We I don't want him to notice me. Whereas, presumably, here again, days before, the greatest thing to be noticed by is God, the Creator. Right. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Here's a big obvious thing that may not be so obvious in the immediate, but look at what's added in in verse number eight to the title of God. Satan separated the Lord God from who gave the command. And when God comes to respond to man's sinfulness, he all of a sudden ties himself back to that relational element. Hey, you mean we can have a relationship now? No, I'm I'm still gonna be Lord God if you'll let me. I'm still willing to have a relationship, it's gonna be changed, right? But I'm still willing to be not just the distant God that the serpent put me in. I'm not in that category with you. Right. Even after sin, so amazing to me that we think that God responds to sin and sinfulness with this hammer drop, and I'm I'm done with you.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

And like I said, it's it's Satan that introduced that thought that it's God trying to put you away from being like him.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah. And God comes not with condemnation, but with questions. Where are you? I love that thought that you you just put forward, brother Brad, about God saying, I'm here in our normal meeting place. Where are you at? But it's also this element, not because God didn't know, He's the all-knowing one, right? But it's for Adam to answer where he's at. Accountability. Where are you? And Adam says, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And God said, Who told you? Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? God comes with questions when it comes to sin, and he's going to get us to uh uh a wonderful study to do is to study the way Jesus dealt with humanity. It's the exact same thing. If you study the gospels and look at how Jesus talked to humanity, he talked with questions. And a lot of times they would come with a question, and he would answer with a question that let them know they were asking the wrong questions. Who told you that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, This is so human. Yeah, the woman that thou gavest me gaveest to be with me. She gave me the tree and I did it. What's he doing? And I did eat. What's he doing? Blaming. He's blaming who? God. God. It's your fault, God. Yeah. She's the one that did something. That was your gift. Such a deliverer I got. Look what she did.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

And the man said, The woman that thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did. I thought you said she was a deliverer. I thought you was gonna make me. It's your fault, God. And the Lord God said to the woman, Does God come down with a hammer on her? What is this that thou hast done? He comes with questions. And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Here again, human response. It's not my fault. Right. It's not my fault. Right. It's amazing, ain't it? It is such love that God approached them with. Oh man. We have this old testament idea that God is looking to just drive us into the dirt. Yeah. But he responds to sin with questions. And how many times do we hear the voice of God after we sin? Thank God for a trained conscience. Yes. Because our conscience will begin to eat at us. Is that really what you wanted? Did that give you the fulfillment you thought it would? Right. You think this is going to be a road to success? And that's God's way of corresponding with man through his word and through our Holy Ghost trained conscience. Did that really give you the fulfillment? Like, I don't know why we think it would be such an odd thing for God to communicate through the God breathes part of us. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah. Sometimes we say, Well, I don't know. God hadn't really spoken to me in an audible voice. Does he have to? Right. I mean, he's the one that breathed the breath of life into you. Why can't he appeal to your innermost being where like it's going to be more convincing if you heard an audible voice or more the voice of God if you hear it with your ears? No. God can talk to us about our sin and it be just as deeply imprinted on our minds as if I'm talking to you. Yeah.

unknown 18:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

The serpent beguiled me and I did eat. She blames the serpent. I just, I just think that's so awesome to think that God responds to sinfulness with questions. I want to go, and we're going to get to this in later studies, but I want to go now to finish out this study today to Genesis chapter number four. This is the first murder. It's the next generation. It's Adam's two sons, Adam and Eve's two sons. And the older brother gets mad at the younger brother for offering a sacrifice that's acceptable to God. And when Cain's anger gets too much for him, because God didn't accept his sacrifice, verse number six, well, verse five, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect, speaking of God. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell, his countenance changed. And the Lord God said to Cain, Why art thou wroth? Why is thy countenance fallen? If you do what's good, if thou dost well, shalt thou not be accepted? So God's responding to the root of the sin that he's about to commit. His anger is going to get out of control. And before it does, God's coming to him with questions, What's going on here? So even here in these early chapters, we find that God's not just concerned about the outward transgression, but he's concerned about what builds toward that. And we we were born under sin because of Adam's sin. So we're born with this nature that rises up in us. But God's not just trying to stop sin after the transgression so you don't sin anymore, but he's trying to get at the root of it. I think about passages like uh the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is going way farther than the outward transgression, and he's talking to them about these inward thoughts that you're having. And even after Cain does kill his brother, God still in verse number nine, and the Lord God said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? He comes again with questions. It's an amazing thing how God responds to sin. It reminds me of Isaiah chapter number one, where God gives this long list in Isaiah one of Israel's great transgressions. And he says, basically, I've, you know, I've I've espoused you to myself. I gave you everything that you could have ever wanted, yet you were still rebellious. And he's like, You're all of your new moons and sabbath, those feasts that we have where you get together and worship me, they mean nothing to me anymore. And he's challenging them to wash themselves, make yourself clean, put away evil doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well. I just want you to be changed. And then he says this, verse number 18, a very popular passage. Come now, let us reason together. I'm willing to talk about. The sin that's in your life. And that we find that right there in the third chapter of the Bible. God is willing to reason with man about his sin. What's your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_03 22:09

To find the underlying reason for any problem, you have to sit down and reason it out.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

In a in a marriage, in a friendship, in anything, in business, if there's a an issue or a problem, the only way to find out what's truly going on is to sit down and reason. Talk it out. Talk it out. Reason out. Why was this outcome like it was? Well, once you get to talking about it, you find out, well, it's because of this, it's because of this decision. It's because of this happening. And so that's that's what I see here in that verse.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

In this case, God who's asking the questions knows the reasons why.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

But he's willing to listen.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Do you think sometimes, or have you ever found that a person that does wrong, sometimes you're even confused of why?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yeah.

unknown 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

What just what just happened?

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Why did I do that?

unknown 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Why did I say that?

unknown 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

And then sometimes you know, it's that when you get down to pray, and a lot of times I've found when you really get down to pray about it and talking to God about it, the whatever you did or said, that was probably a pretty that was a small uh revealing of the true issue. Yeah. And it takes some reasoning that out and talking it out to truly get to the root of that and find that God wants to do that.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

He wants to meet together and reason together. That's so powerful, Brother Brent.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

We always I think jump from the sin to them being driven out of the garden. Right. Mm-hmm. That's just that's the next step. They sin, then they're we don't talk about what happens between just totally overlook the approach that God came to them with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Well, I I keep going back to the example of of a potter. Or just in in being a builder, working with anything with your hands. And uh if there's a mistake or if there's an issue with a structure, you know, from to anyone else they look at it, the answer might be just tear it down, just scrap it. Um but the one that designed it, the one that knows everything that goes into that project, then he can start figuring, he can start maybe asking some of the questions, all right, well, what went wrong? Break it down. I can redo this, I can make this again. And it's God, I see that I I formed you. Now there's consequences for their sin. We'll we'll find that out. There's consequences. Um may have to rebuild some things, may have to shore some other thing, we may have to do something different, but my hands formed you, and now there's something wrong. I may have to break it down a little bit, yeah, but I know how to reshape you.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

And I and I know the the creation here, it's ours, but we have to make the right decisions. I mean, you know, God can't just speak us into a perfect, sinless life. Right. That's it's our choice. Yeah. But he knows how to work on us. We're his creation. He knows how to work on us and get us and to reveal the true issue and fix it.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

There are modern arguments about man's choice, God's sovereignty, and all of that. And it feels uncomfortable to talk about God being disturbed or heartbroken about what went on.

unknown 25:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

But it also feels so comforting to think about that too. It does. So I think a lot of the modern arguments are not that's not even it's not even the right things to to think about. It makes good weak. Yeah. Think about a God who's so deeply connected to humanity, the crowning of his creation. And what else does it mean to uh be created in his image and after his likeness if we didn't have the likeness of the ability to suppress our own appetites? They had a choice to follow God's command or not. This is not God picking and choosing. God did not make them partake of that tree, neither does he make us sin.

unknown 26:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

We have a choice. We can we can turn turn a deaf ear to our appetites. Now, if we were created with a choice before, God does not take that choice away after sin. He's still trying to reason with men like Cain. Why wouldn't after that you just write humanity off if God's not trying to get to the root of that problem? Those are bigger discussions probably than what we can have here, but I just wanted to highlight the fact that man was created with the ability to reason out. Do I want to partake of this or do I not? Is this going to be something that leads to good or to bad? They knew. Adam knew. Oh, yeah. Adam knew it was not going to be a good result. Yeah. Man's given a choice. He had the ability to say no. You don't have you can trust God's word. And in a sense, we all have that same ability now. We can trust God's word with what he says is good. And what he says is good is his son is to be trusted and to be followed. If we'll follow him, we'll find out where that good leads to. If we don't, we'll find out where that bad leads to. We're going to find ourselves following the deceiver and going to destruction. But to follow our Lord is to follow to everlasting life. Yes. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

And it gives me a purpose for my life. It's the reason that I still live.